The Gay Guide to Glee: Season 2 Episode 3, “Grilled Cheesus”

When Quinn went all Sarah Baracuda in the season premiere, donning her pom-poms and her Crucifix and preaching the gospel of Cynical Manipulation, I knew it was only a matter of time before Glee waded (deeper) into the waters of the River Jordan and got itself damp baptized. But I expected the show to handle the subject matter the way it approaches nearly everything else: with an indelicate and superficial mixture of confectionary lightness and in-your-face bombast, akin to a Vaudeville comic’s mug-besmearing cream pie (or Jane Lynch.) Instead, it surprised me (in a good sense) by providing a witty, sharp, and poignant—not to mention appropriately adolescent—take on the topic of Belief (and no one even sang “Don’t Stop Believin’”!) And by appropriately adolescent, I mean that the adolescent characters approached the subject appropriately. The adults were pedantic, treacly, and sanctimonious, as usual. Except for Kurt’s dad, Burt, who was his intense and excellent self—that is, in the sections of the episode in which he wasn’t in a coma. Praise Cheesus! What happened?Finn Gets Lucky God-y: When a toasty image of the world’s most famous slacker carpenter appears on White Bread’s white bread, the big galumph believes himself to be in possession of Aladdin’s lamp. And like the stooge in some bad barroom joke, he applies the totality of his marginal intelligence to wasting his three wishes on worthless pubescent fantasies: football, football, and Rachel’s less-than-ample (and fully attached to Rachel) boobage. What he doesn’t do is pray for the improved health of Kurt’s dad, who he claims is the closest thing to father he has (I guess he forgot about that tacky urn and worn recliner from this episode, about which he used to speak of with similar paternal fervor.) Speaking of prayers, mine from last week was answered in the return of hunky quarterback Sam Evans who showed up briefly, his handsome face masked by a football helmet, just in time to have Finn’s third wish dislocate his intensely gym-defined arm. And speaking of dislocations, when Finn finally realizes that God is everywhere, not just on a sandwich, he does the rational (teenage) thing and devours the golden (brown) icon. Transubstantiation never tasted so buttery.

Kurt Gets Dad-y Sad-y: We all know that Burt Hummel is the best dad on TV. How? Because Chris Colfer told me so. But everyone knows what happens to dads who are too real and accepting. They mask their anger and resentment by consuming their body weight in cholesterol each day, clogging their carotids, and end up collapsing on the floor of their oil-stained garages. It’s not all to be blamed on diet. If my fashion-forward, funky-fresh, floaty-fairy son rejected my sincere and well intentioned offer to spend a Friday night engaged in familial dining/dialogue for yet another screening of Sing Along The Sound of Music, I might just resort to having a massive coronary, as well, in order to shock his frontal lobe into discerning what is capital-I important. Fortunately, given his mewling contractual obligations, Kurt responds in exactly the way we expect: with love, regret, and a full-on Iguacu of tears. What he doesn’t do, even in the face of a similarly hydro-powered torrent of God-pressure from his friends, his teachers, and the undeniable righteousness of Sue’s handi-capable sister, is renounce his disbelief in the Evil Teapot-Dwelling Dwarf in the Sky (and his gay/woman/science-hating acolytes.) Instead, he sticks to his atheism, sticks his Pops with acupuncture, and sticks it with a mournfully fab version of a Fab Four tune (he also fantasizes up some fake nostalgic video of his dad teaching his seven year-old doppelganger to ride a girly, be-streamered bicycle, which literally made me gasp.) End up: despite having blown out everyone’s prayer candles, Shabbat candles, and windy, melismatic church singing, the hungry jowls of Hades don’t open and guzzle up our little homo, and Burt seems to come back to life. Gays 1; God 0.

Mercedes Gets Churchy: Continuing to showcase the show’s general inability to use her in any but the most stereotypical storylines, Mercedes’ response to the crisis in her Best Gay’s life is to hit the church choir juice, hard. Not that her funky, Aretha-ized version of Simon and Gar(un)funkel wasn’t extremely strong, it just would have been nice if they’d thought up some other way for her to express her emotionality besides this easy cliche. Given all this racial profiling, I half-expected Figgins to set up a shrine to Vishnu, and Tina and Mike to suddenly start cooking up their grandmothers’ ancient herbal remedies and speaking in broken-English fortune cookie homilies. Thank God Gay for some marginal restraint.

Rachel Gets Barbra-y: Proving, as if we were in doubt, that Rachel’s compass always spins magnetically back to her own self, her response to the Burt crisis is to pray to her personal god, Narcissus, by singing Streisand to her own pond-side reflection. I personally thought that if she was going to belt it out about having a papa hear her, it could have at least been over a literal montage of her two dads’ inability to listen due to the echoing cacophony of their paddling one another in their basement dungeon, or their wild uncontrolled giggles at the inclusion of a handsome young third. I guess my kind of prayers only go so far.

Puck Gets Jew-y: Though it goes against my anti-devotional ethos, I love that the balded hunkerman, Mr. Puckerman, goes to Temple with his bubby to do his bit for Burt. Except for the fact that my own bubby just broke her rib in a car crash, and it made me feel guilty that I haven’t even called her yet. Bad Jew!

The Adults get a-Dolt-y: Will delivers trite lectures to everyone he sees. Sue cheats at checkers with her retarded special sister and invents yet another subplot in which she attempts to use one of the kids as her treacherous stool. Emma blows her stack again, which makes me fear it will become a stack schtick, stat. And Principal Figgins bans spirituality from the school, sort of, then relents, sort of. I don’t really care about any of this. Can we please hustle the grown-ups (further) into the background (except Burt? And, perhaps,the snorting Bieste, who really deserves her own show.)

Song Rating (* to *****)

• “Only the Good Die Young” (Billy Joel) *** Puck Heebs out with a big, cut B.J. (tune), but hasn’t everyone heard this song about forty million times too many?

• “I Look to You” (Whitney) **** Mercedes just plain kills it. (Even if it is all God-y, and the song isn’t that good.)

• “Papa Can You Hear Me” (Barbra) ** Q: Is anyone more bored than Finn during this song? A: Yes. Me!

• “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” (The Beatles) **** Kurt turns this into a cheesy ballad, without the cheese. (Or any Cheesus.)